Preface to 1896 Edition

As the chess-problem, given on the previous page, has puzzled some of my readers,
it may be well to explain that it is correctly worked out, so far as the moves are
concerned. The alternation of Red and White is perhaps not so strictly
observed as it might be, and the “castling” of the three Queens
is merely a way of saying that they entered the palace; but the “check” of
the White King at move 6, the capture of the Red Knight at move 7, and the
final “checkmate” of the Red King, will be found, by any one who
will take the trouble to set the pieces and play the moves as directed, to
be strictly in accordance with the laws of the game.

The new words, in the poem “Jabberwocky”,
have given rise to some difference of opinion as to their pronunciation: so
it may be well to give instructions on that point also. Pronounce “slithy” as
if it were the two words “sly, the”: make the “g” hard in “gyre” and “gimble”:
and pronounce “rath” to rhyme with “bath”.

For this sixty-first thousand, fresh electrotypes have been taken from the
wood-blocks (which, never having been used for printing from, are in as good
condition as when first cut in 1871), and the whole book has been set up afresh
with new type. If the artistic qualities of this re-issue fall short, in any
particular, of those possessed by the original issue, it will not be for want
of painstaking on the part of author, publisher, or printer.

I take this opportunity of announcing that the Nursery “Alice”,
hitherto priced at four shillings, net, is now to be had on the same terms
as the ordinary shilling picture-books--although I feel sure that it is, in
every quality (except the text itself, in which I am not qualified
to pronounce), greatly superior to them. Four shillings was a perfectly reasonable
price to charge, considering the very heavy initial outlay I had incurred:
still, as the Public have practically said, “We will not give
more than a shilling for a picture-book, however artistically got-up,” I
am content to reckon my outlay on the book as so much dead loss, and, rather
than let the little ones, for whom it was written, go without it, I am selling
it at a price which is, to me, much the same thing as giving it away.